Television is an essential worker right now. At a time of amplified anxiety and uncertainty, it offers solace and escape, and as millions contend with the emotional toll of being separated from family...
Comfort TV
The comedies, competition shows, and other escapist fare keeping us sane right now

Mindy Kaling is obsessed with romantic comedy films, and frankly the world is better off for it. As a producer, writer and star who first paid homage to the genre in her long-running Fox (then Hulu) comedy...
What, you haven't written the modern equivalent of "King Lear" yet? You gave up on needlepoint and your herb garden died back in April? You've reached the point in all of this where your main form of is...
Maya and Anna, the two best friends at the center of "PEN15," each wear half of a broken heart around their necks, the classic "best friends forever" pendant recognized by women of all ages. Of course,...
Surely as Catherine the Great is the among Russian history's most celebrated figures, Elle Fanning burns brightly in headlining "The Great." Her performance is everything a viewer wants from an empress...
"Hey, let's check our social calendar. Nothing, total blank." This line reads like a moody tweet that any of us could have sent last night. Or the night before — or, frankly, anytime since a global pandemic...
Since the pandemic started, many people have chosen to occupy their minds and manage their anxieties with domestic projects: banana bread, sourdough starter, #TheStew, #ThePasta (followed by the dramatic...
It's been a year of some pretty spectacular documentaries — from HBO's revealing sports and mental health documentary "The Weight of Gold," to Netflix's inspiring Paralympics Games doc "Rising Phoenix,"...
The author of "The Baby-Sitters Club" book series, Ann M. Martin, was prolific. She wrote dozens of books, many during the late '80s and early '90s when I fit snugly into her readership demographic. For...
John Hughes' 1986 comedy "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" culminates with the high school hero (Matthew Broderick) hijacking a parade float and setting the city dancing to a lip-synched "Twist and Shout." A...
In the world of skateboarding, a "Betty" is kind of a dismissive term, a broad-brush term for any girl hanging around the skate park, whether she's just there to watch the boys, acting as kind of a groupie,...
In space, taking a pee could potentially kill you. That's what astronaut Scott Kelly discovered on one mission when he went to relieve himself but found a hose leaking the chemical called pretreat instead....
Think about what your refrigerator looks like in that two to three day window before you finally break down and head back to the grocery store — especially now, during the pandemic. You know what I'm about;...
In "Love on the Spectrum" — one of several new reality programs that came to Netflix this month — filmmakers highlight the ways in which finding love for young adults with autism can be a complicated,...
Romantic comedies, like the Disney versions of fairy tales that came before them, reliably seduce the audience with the promise of a happy ending. The reasonable person only buys into the dream to a point,...
Found within the first three minutes of "Taste the Nation," Hulu's new food series hosted by Padma Lakshmi, is a montage of clips that distills the heart of the show. It begins with footage of Mexican...